by Nanette Ashby
In this installment, I’m joined by Marjolein Kik, a Dutch academic specializing in dress history and experimental archaeology. Their research into the history of Dutch pockets takes center-stage in this episode. We start with the question: What is experimental archaeology? Marjolein explains the nuances of this new and unique research method and how they created an educational tool for museums, based on this research. We discussed materials, sewing techniques and designs used to make pockets between 1650 and 1950. The collection of Dutch pockets Marjolein created and examined are just as diverse as the topics connected to them. Marjolein reveals what women carried in their pockets, how this garment was worn, and used in everyday life. Pockets can provide us with a unique perspective into women’s history and identity. For example, how did pockets influence gender roles? And why were the Suffragettes sad to see them go. These questions and many more will be answered by Marjolein.
Please let us know your thoughts over on our instagram page @raffia_magazine // https://www.instagram.com/raffia_magazine/
If you like this episode please leave us a rating and review on Spotify– It is really appreciated! https://open.spotify.com/show/60ROIuvNmpqYrAYDOVLp8Y
Book mentioned:
Burman, B. and Fennetaux, A., The Pocket: A Hidden History Of Women’s Lives, 1600-1900, 2019 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/1468-229X.13008
Guédelon Castle-Fort:
https://archaeology-travel.com/france/guedelon
Butser Ancient Farm:
https://www.butserancientfarm.co.uk
Queen Victoria’s lace wedding dress:
https://www.rct.uk/collection/71975/queen-victorias-wedding-dress
https://fashionhistory.fitnyc.edu/1840-queen-victorias-wedding-dress/
Episode Transcript:
Marjolein Kik
You really cannot physically get closer to someone in the past than the clothing that they wore on their literal skin.
Nanette Ashby
Welcome to the gender and diversity podcast Culturally Curious, where arts and culture have never been more titillating with me, your host, Nanette Ashby.
In this instalment, I’m joined by Marjolein Kik, a Dutch academic specializing in dress history and experimental archaeology. Their research into the history of Dutch pockets takes center-stage in this episode. We start with the question: What is experimental archaeology? Marjolein explains the nuances of this new and unique research method and how they created an educational tool for museums, based on this research. We discussed materials, sewing techniques and designs used to make pockets between 1650 and 1950. The collection of Dutch pockets Marjolein created and examined are just as diverse as the topics connected to them. Marjolein reveals what women carried in their pockets, how this garment was worn, and used in everyday life. Pockets can provide us with a unique perspective into women’s history and identity. For example, how did pockets influence gender roles? And why were the Suffragettes sad to see them go. These questions and many more will be answered by Marjolein.
A transcript of our conversation with all information and links mentioned during the interview is available in the show notes over on our website at raffia-magazine.com. We would love to hear your thoughts about this episode of Culturally Curious over on our Instagram page, which is @raffia_magazine. Also, don’t forget to leave us a rating and review over on iTunes and Spotify.
So with no further ado, let’s dive into the pockets.
Nanette Ashby
Hello Marjolein! Thank you so much for joining us today. Could you introduce yourself to the listeners, please?
Marjolein Kik
Yes, thank you so much for having me. My name is Marjolein Kik. I’ve got a master’s degree in Experimental Archaeology and Material Culture, and I’m currently working in the cultural heritage sector in the Netherlands.
Nanette Ashby
So first of all, what is actually experimental archaeology? And how does it differ from our traditional idea of archaeology? Could you tell us more about that?
Marjolein Kik
Yeah, of course. So experimental archaeology is kind of a subfield of archaeology. So when you think about traditional archeology, it mostly concerns the excavation and study of material culture from the past, in order to learn more about human history, right? So what experimental archaeology does is, it puts these different archaeological hypotheses to the test, through practical experimentation. So that usually takes the form of creating reconstructions using mostly “historically accurate methods and materials”. So for example, you can make all kinds of things from something really small, like a brooch to something really big like a house, it can really be anything. The goal is by reconstructing these different aspects of the physical environment and seeing the way people lived and the objects they used and interacted with, we learn more about people and the societies in which they lived. I think it’s a really fascinating field of study and it’s a lot of fun!
Nanette Ashby
Yeah, definitely. It reminds me of the project in France, where they’re rebuilding a medieval castle from scratch. They’re doing everything by hand, like the living conditions, the cooking, the agriculture, all the trades, and they’re actually coming up to completing that project that’s been going on for over 20 years. That’s one of the examples I always have in my head when I think about your living history to learn how history works. Like how the details worked, right?
Marjolein Kik
Oh, that’s so cool! Yeah, exactly. It’s just fascinating, because you encounter questions and topics that you would never otherwise think of from just a theoretical perspective. It’s when you’re actually putting things to the test that you’re like: How did they do this aspect that you would otherwise just never think about?
Nanette Ashby
When you’re in the situation, it’s different than if you’re just reading about it on paper. That sounds really exciting! Is that also in the line of “Openluchtmuseum” here in the Netherlands? I’m not sure what the English translation for “Openluchtmuseum” is…
Marjolein Kik
I think just “open air museum” probably.
Nanette Ashby
“Open air museum”, yeah. That kind of reminds me of that. And I know that you were working on creating education in museums. And I was wondering, what is experimental archaeology or more the mindset of it as well? What does that bring to the table in regards to education in general, or specifically in museums?
Marjolein Kik
So the interesting thing is that it really brings history to life, right? You’re not just talking about concepts or ideas anymore. You’re creating something physical that people can experience with all of their senses, and they can really engage with it. So people find that fun, they find it exciting! Because it’s not just about theory or having to think about it, but it’s something that you can live, that you can do, and it allows for a lot of storytelling and in my eyes it also kind of evens the playing field. Because usually, when someone’s telling a story about history, they’re very much the master of the story, right? They’re the person with the knowledge and you are the recipient receiving this. But when people get to experience it for themselves, they also have their own experience of it. And they get to bring in their own questions and their own observations, which kind of, I guess, levels, the playing field and the conversation. I think that’s a really fascinating aspect of it as well.
Nanette Ashby
Feels more democratic, because everybody’s starting from the same point. You don’t have to have a lot of background knowledge to have a valuable experience.
Marjolein Kik
Yeah, exactly. To me, it really is also a way of making history and heritage a lot more accessible.
Nanette Ashby
Definitely. However, I remember, from reading your thesis, that experimental archaeology currently is still quite controversial. Can you tell us some of the topics of discussion when it comes to experimental archaeology?
Marjolein Kik
The start of the field really came in like the 60s and the 70s of the 20th century, but with any “new” field, there’s always questions about its academic and scientific validity. And because it’s such a reconstructive field, people sometimes wonder about: What’s the difference between an experimental archaeological project and an open air museum, or even a theme park? Like, what sets these different things apart? That’s really where the scientific method comes in, I think. So, you really need to balance your research goals and your methods with education and entertainment, and also with funding. One of the earliest projects of experimental archaeology was in the UK, with Butser Ancient Farm: really all of their funding pretty much came from visitors visiting and paying a ticket. So you need to keep the place accessible and somewhat entertaining for people to come, in order to fund your research. How much weight can you give the public, but not jeopardize your research? You know, it’s hard. And also the balance between, say, for example, health and safety standards and modern law. And compared to historical reality in the past, like, especially if you make an open air museum, you know, you want to make it accessible. So for example, you want the doorframes to be wide and high and preferably have level flooring so people in a wheelchair can also have access. But that’s not what it looked like, historically, you know.
To clarify, experimental archaeology is not quite the same as living history, even though they are related fields, and they do interact. So experimental archaeology really is about having a certain hypothesis or creating a certain hypothesis, and testing it with gathering data. And just using the scientific methods to come up with an explanation or a working reconstruction of how things were in the past, based on evidence.
Something that is a little bit more contested, I suppose, which may be what you were referring to, is Experiential Archaeology. So that’s less about data gathering and testing, and more about trying to get as similar of an experience as possible as someone in the past. So you have, yeah, sort of a shared level of experience that can give you insight. And I think, as a method, it can be really thought provoking and give a lot of new insights, even though they’re hard to prove. But I think in the end, it’s all about acknowledging the limitations of your research method, right? If you acknowledge it has these limitations, and therefore we can say these things, but we cannot say those, that goes for any method, right? So I think it can still be a valid method as long as you acknowledge the limitations.
Nanette Ashby
But that sounds really interesting. Because a lot of the time we have to preconception that history is made out of hard facts and hard data and this type of research feels tied to the person and not the events necessarily.
Marjolein Kik
Yeah, exactly. It really is about: what was people’s daily life, right? You’re creating the material culture of someone’s daily life. You’re not just talking about kings or warriors. You’re talking about everyday women doing the laundry.
Nanette Ashby
Exactly, yeah. That is a wonderful segue, because we met at a conference about costume curation and dress history. And I want to talk about that with you more, obviously! I was wondering: what challenges does one face when researching or working within dress history? Because as we just said, you know, usually the focus is more on big events, or more male dominated parts of history. And dress history has preconceptions being quite a feminine topic. Not as important.
Marjolein Kik
Yeah, definitely. All of these things you mentioned are really relevant in this field. And obviously, another struggle is just what a fascinating topic it is. There’s so much to talk about and just not enough time! How can you possibly choose? So that is perhaps the main struggle. But aside from that, one of the most pressing things in studying dress history is that you’re talking about perishable materials. Most of it just simply does not survive. We have but a sliver of what originally existed, you know. Like metal or stone survive so much more, so much better in the archaeological record than a perishable material that’s biodegradable. It only survives in very specific contexts, you know. Very cold environments, in the ice. Or very warm environments, very dry environments. It needs to be a very specific climate to survive. And for most of history, and most places in the world, that’s just simply not the case. So, even though there is so much textile in history, we know that textile was the main material that would have been used historically, especially in societies that did not yet have cardboard, did not yet have plastic… But most of it is gone. So that’s why we refer to it as the “missing majority”. And obviously, the further back in time you go, the more difficult it gets.
Nanette Ashby
Cool! Okay. When you were saying that it played such a big role, I was reminded, a few years ago, I went to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and had a tour specifically focusing on lace. Throughout the collection on the history of lace; lace actually played a huge role historically. The reason we now have white wedding dresses, apparently, is because Queen Victoria wanted to help sustain the lace-making business in the UK, which was predominantly by women. And that was one of the ways women could make their own income. To do so, her wedding dress was completely made out of white British lace.
Marjolein Kik
Oh, that’s so interesting.
Nanette Ashby
Between France and Belgium, it was very contested, who made the better lace. The image I still have in my head of that tour, which is a few years ago by now, was that they would take dogs from their homes from one side of the border, wrap them with as much lace as they could, and then let the dog run home across the border as a way of smuggling lace into a different country, because you weren’t allowed to trade the lace across the borders, because it was quite a big political and economic part of history. I thought that was really fascinating!
Marjolein Kik
That’s so interesting! Also, just in general, like histories of smuggling, and things like that, and the creative ways people did it is so interesting.
Nanette Ashby
Oh, it’s so interesting! Yes!
Marjolein Kik
Especially with something like lace, which is so labor-intensive. When you see old videos from the early 20th century, when people were still making lace in those traditional methods (some are still today, but it’s not nearly as much as they used to), the speed at which they do this is incredible! I’ve been looking at it, I’m like: “wow! you must really know very well what you’re doing”! It’s one of those kinds of lost trades that can’t always fully be replicated by machines. And you can, apparently lace experts can always tell if something was done by hand or by machine.
Nanette Ashby
But that’s also so fascinating. And I’m so glad that, as you just said, the fact that lace even survived is quite special. That we can actually do the research now.
In what ways does the field of academia still face structural sexism, especially within dress histories?
Marjolein Kik
Well just like in any field, research is influenced by whatever the prevailing societal outlook is at the time and what the culture is within academia. If there is sexism in academia, and in society, that will bleed through into the research as well. The topic of dress history is generally coded as quite feminine. And most of the researchers on the topic are also female researchers. I mean, we met at the conference, and the vast majority of people there were, you know, feminine-presenting people. Often don’t get taken as seriously. And it has definitely gotten better over the past couple of decades, but we’re not there yet. Especially in parts of the 20th century where the scientific outlook was very “measurable results”. So like, you can put a number on it. And it was not very based on, you know, interpretation and experience. It was “if we test something this specific way, we can give it this number”.
Nanette Ashby
And also the idea of focusing on the everyday person, especially everyday women, is also not at the top of the priority list in historical research.
Marjolein Kik
No, exactly.
Nanette Ashby
Let’s focus more on your topic, what you research. Because you focus on a very interesting part of dress history, which are pockets. Could you tell us more about that? How did you get to that topic? What was the appeal of it?
Marjolein Kik
Yeah, of course! So funnily enough, I kind of found my topic through YouTube. There are a lot of dress historians on YouTube nowadays, people who are really genuine experts in their fields, but who have taken to YouTube to share their research with quite a broad audience. It’s really catching on, it’s quite popular. And it really is making the field more accessible. And I got really intrigued by some research from the UK by Barbara Burman and Ariane Fennetaux, who had just come out with research on pockets a few years ago. I was wondering about how it was in the Netherlands, and I wanted to do some comparative research. So thank you fashion YouTubers for your contribution! I’m really glad that there is such a representation of dress history on YouTube nowadays because it is a very valuable field of research. Clothing is such a personal document of someone’s human experience.
Nanette Ashby
Definitely.
Marjolein Kik
You really cannot physically get closer to someone in the past than the clothing that they wore on their literal skin. It’s such an extension of your identity and gives such insights, especially into people who could not literally write history the way it’s usually conveyed to us.
Nanette Ashby
Yes!
Marjolein Kik
That just makes dress history such a valuable field of research for me.
Nanette Ashby
You can also notice the constraints or the limitations of the clothing. Or actually, what surprised me when reading your thesis was also the amount of liberation. Because, if we think about pockets, for example, what comes to mind is women celebrating that the dresses have pockets, a big achievement for women’s clothing nowadays. But what surprised me when looking at your research: how big the pockets actually were!
Marjolein Kik
Yeah, they could be gigantic.
Nanette Ashby
Exactly! Can you tell us a bit more about the actual pockets? What timeframe you looked at? You already said it was focused on the Netherlands. I think I remember you saying there wasn’t much research done on this topic in the Netherlands. Were you the first person or did you find any sources that were precursors?
Marjolein Kik
No, I think, specifically in a Dutch context, as far as I could find, I think I was the first person to make a bigger overview of Dutch pockets. So I also made a private database.
Nanette Ashby
Oh, cool.
Marjolein Kik
Scrolling through a lot of databases to gather all the pockets. And sometimes, they were also not correctly labeled. But at this point, I should probably first clarify what a pocket even is!
Nanette Ashby
Let’s start there, yes!
Marjolein Kik
Yeah, it’s such a simple question, like: what is a pocket? But it’s surprisingly hard to answer. So a pocket or a pair of pockets, even, is an independent garment worn around the waist underneath your clothing to store and carry around small personal possessions. Quite similar to pockets today but they’re a bit different. For example, what they look like. It depends a bit on the country and on the period. Though, in those places, the shape remains surprisingly consistent throughout history. So in the UK, they tend to be more pear shaped, whereas in the Netherlands, they tend to be rectangular. Like I said, they can come in singles or pairs, and they’re connected by a string to tie them around your waist. They’re certainly much bigger than our modern day pockets, though. They come in a whole variety of sizes. But yeah, they can be truly huge. The biggest one that I came across in my database of Dutch pockets is 55 centimeters long.
Nanette Ashby
Oh, wow!
Marjolein Kik
That is incredibly big. Yeah. There’s also stories of women carrying around the most outrageous things, like a full size chicken, on her way to the market, or things like that.
Nanette Ashby
Oh that’s fantastic!
Marjolein Kik
Or like loaves of bread. Like, can you imagine fitting an entire loaf of bread or your little jean pocket? No way. And they’re really fun too, you know. Because our modern day pockets are sewn into our clothing.
Nanette Ashby
Yeah.
Marjolein Kik
They’re very plain, because why would they have any decoration, you know? You never see them. But these were really quite beautifully decorated. They could be plain, but they often had embroidery on them, or they were made of patchwork, or they had cross stitching or had a really patterned material to liven things up. We see a lot of floral themes. Fantastic for research, sometimes they had the initials or even the year embroidered on them.
Nanette Ashby
Oh, amazing!
Marjolein Kik
Nothing makes me happier as a researcher, when I’m trying to date things, as when they just happily embroidered a year they made it on the pockets, I’m so happy! And laundry marks, they often added those as well.
Nanette Ashby
And just to clarify, because you just said they were decorated: were they visible? or were they under a layer of clothing?
Marjolein Kik
So that’s the interesting thing. One of the ways in which they kind of defy definition is: they were worn underneath the clothing typically, so they would not be visible, but they were still decorated. In the same way, I guess, sometimes your underwear might have a little bow on it or a little pattern.
Nanette Ashby
Okay.
Marjolein Kik
They were often (I’ll talk more about this in a second), but they were made just in a little sewing circle of women, like sewing together, so you would see what the other person is making. But sometimes, in rare cases, they would actually be worn overtop of your skirts. Maybe if you were on a market that you constantly had to access it to get money from it. They’re quite typical, but atypical at the same time where they don’t always make sense.
Nanette Ashby
Okay.
Marjolein Kik
You tie them around the waist over the top of your underwear, but underneath the outer layer of clothing, and then you access them through a slit in the side of the skirt. And they’re only worn by women. Men’s pockets at this point in time were already sewn into their clothing but women’s pockets would not be sewn into clothing. They were separate garments.
Nanette Ashby
Okay.
Marjolein Kik
And they were worn by women of all layers of society. So no matter how rich or poor you were, or what your social standing was, like all women would be wearing pockets.
Nanette Ashby
What time period did you look at? From when to when are we talking about?
Marjolein Kik
Oh! I decided to take the same time period that Barbara Burman and Ariane Fennetaux use for their research, which was roughly the 1650’s ‘til the 1900’s. Still my research extended a little bit further because pockets were used for a longer time in the Netherlands than they were in the UK. So mine would go until about halfway through the 20th century. In the UK, around the 1850’s, people started seeing pockets as these old fashioned items and grandma pockets. But in the Netherlands their use persisted for quite a bit longer because they were part of the traditional folkwear and folkwear persisted for quite a bit longer. So we see now they start entering museum collections: as the wearer dies, the family donates part of their traditional clothing to the local museum. And the pockets are part of that.
Nanette Ashby
In that case, are the pockets visible and part of the whole concept of the traditional outfit? Is the pocket used as an accessory, or is it hidden under the clothing?
Marjolein Kik
It’s still hidden under the clothing. But what you do see, interestingly, despite the fact that it’s not visible to anyone but the wearer when they get dressed, women might still switch out their usual day to day pocket for a different pocket that’s black or made of a slightly more expensive material on Sundays when they go to church.
Nanette Ashby
So it was considered as part of the whole outfit. It wasn’t seen as something extra, like jewelry for example, but it was seen as another fabric component to one’s outfit.
Marjolein Kik
Nowadays, we just tend to see underwear as something very simple. But historically, underwear was very important in creating the right silhouette and creating the right shape for the rest of the outfit. So it was a very integral part of the whole whereas now, you know, it doesn’t really matter too much what underwear you wear under your outfit, unless you’re wearing something very tight, in which case you might want to wear seamless underwear or something like that. Just as historically you might have used your underwear to create a certain silhouette or use it in a certain way, just as, historically, the silhouette changes, the way they wear their pocket changes. Because as we entered the bustle area, where the skirts are a lot more smooth in the front and on the sides, where you have this huge bustle in the back, we start seeing that maybe the slit in the skirt is on the back. So the pockets is in the back as well, which I imagined would make it a bit more difficult to access.
And you know, in the time period where they wear panniers – panniers are basically huge pockets. So there’s no need for a whole pocket garment, though you could put one in the pannier. This is a fun thing in this sort of historical dress community or in the cosplay community: when people wear panniers or pockets, they still store older items inside there. So they still sort of serve their function, which is fun.
So it’s quite a big span of time. But because they stay relatively unchanged, despite the enormous changes that society goes through in that time, it’s still quite doable.
Nanette Ashby
That sounds like a lot of work. Especially, you mentioned, you created a database connecting and finding the pockets. That must have been a lot of work, especially since it’s such a big timeframe.
Marjolein Kik
Yeah.
Nanette Ashby
Wow!
Marjolein Kik
I think, in the UK, there was (in their database), they had a lot more older pockets. The Dutch pockets were a little bit harder to find, such old examples. Also, because often, in museum catalogs, they are not correctly labeled.
Nanette Ashby
Okay.
Marjolein Kik
So people think they’re aprons or they think it’s something else. So that makes it even harder to find or they don’t have pictures. So my examples are all a little bit later. In order to gather, you know, relevant data from my research and to be able to generalize some of my statements, I think I gathered at least 100 Dutch pockets.
Nanette Ashby
Did you see commonalities between the 100 pockets and fabrics or styles? You already mentioned that the idea of the pocket didn’t change much. But did you see that the fabrics or how they were made change?
Marjolein Kik
The material they’re made from kind of depended on the place and the period. So initially, we see a lot of wool and linen, and then much later on also synthetic fabrics, or even recycled materials. So we have an example of a woman who took a soldier’s… kept from her husband’s and reused the fabric into a pocket or we see scrap fabrics for patchwork pockets. But even a leather example, I think exists. But the vast, vast majority is made of cotton, which makes sense within the larger historical context with colonialism and the industrial revolution.
And actually, the methods of making them remain largely the same. The vast majority are hand sewn, though we do have some early examples made by early sewing machines. And you can see they kind of struggled getting around a corner and creating curves. Yeah, actually a really fun detail is that girls learned sewing from a very young age in a very social setting, and in order to practice they would make clothing for their dolls. So we have a whole array of doll sized pockets as well.
Nanette Ashby
Oh, that’s so precious!
Marjolein Kik
They’re very cute, but sometimes also belonging to very creepy dolls, I must say. I’ve seen some creepy dolls! Yeah, when I made a couple pairs of my own pockets for this research, I used a number of different materials as well, and in different sizes to kind of represent the variety that we see historically.
Nanette Ashby
I’m sorry, I have to get back to the creepy dolls. Did you find the pocket still attached to the Dolls? How are they preserved? How did you find them?
Marjolein Kik
So in some of the later examples, yes, there were still dressed dolls who still had the pockets attached to them. So there’s especially one example, which I believe is a 20th century example of a doll to have one of the early sleeper eyes. So when you put the doll down, the eyes close, but because they’re made of a different material, the discoloration works differently over time. So the doll has one color, but the eyes are an entirely different color. It’s incredibly creepy! Yeah, but sometimes we just have the little pockets or the doll clothing, and in some cases, it’s still attached to the actual doll. It kind of depends how old it is and what material it was made from.
Nanette Ashby
So you just mentioned that part of your research approach was to make the pockets yourself. As you said, you used some of the fabrics that were similar. But did you also use the same stitching style? Did you try it with a sewing machine? Were there manuals that you based the pockets on? Or did you have to examine the pockets and kind of retrace the steps yourself?
Marjolein Kik
Yeah, so fascinatingly, it was a combination of both. So obviously, you could look at historical pockets and see how they were made. But there are also very detailed sewing guides, like the Work Woman’s Guide, which I believe came out somewhere around the mid 19th century. Very complex diagrams, saying exactly what stitch to use and what angles and what width – that was for the UK pockets. And then for the Dutch looking pockets, I actually found a pattern, which was a page in a magazine: we can see that their methods of making and their design stay so similar, even if an example is a bit later, you can assume that it was done very similarly in the past. I have to say this, what I love about some of the smaller museums is that they’re not quite as strict with what their object descriptions look like. So we actually have one example of a pocket in a catalog. And it says in the description that it was “slordig”, which means it was shoddily made, probably by a person who didn’t have a lot of time or was very poor, but it says it in the description, which I think is fantastic!
Nanette Ashby
That’s so refreshing! How did you make them? You made them by hand?
Marjolein Kik
Yeah, I hand stitched everything.
Nanette Ashby
Oh, wow. That’s a lot of work too.
Marjolein Kik
Yeah, especially because I did it relatively late in the process. So it was very hurried hand stitching. But that makes sense. Some of them would have been made in quite a hurry, as well.
Nanette Ashby
As the museum confirmed.
Marjolein Kik
Maybe if mine ever end up in a museum, they’ll also describe them as shoddily made. We’ll see.
Nanette Ashby
Did you enjoy the process though?
Marjolein Kik
Yes, I did. Every time I have a hand sewing project, I have a renewed appreciation for hand sewing, and for all the differences in materials and for just the process of making and being a maker of things, which, you know, is what experimental archaeology is also all about. So it makes sense that I would enjoy that. But I really enjoy engaging with history in that very practical, engaged way. On top of also the more philosophical way, I suppose, and more theoretical way.
Nanette Ashby
As you already mentioned, women’s pockets were very different to men’s pockets. So the question of why did you specifically focus on women’s pockets might be a little superfluous, but I was still wondering what other information could you gather by choosing to focus on women’s pockets specifically.
Marjolein Kik
So the really interesting thing about women’s pockets is that they were used in a different way than men’s pockets, even though they might have had a similar function. Because for women, this was mostly sort of the only place, often, in which they had some privacy, and in which they kept most of their personal items. So it can tell us a lot about their daily lives, and especially the way they were used can tell us a lot, and the things they carry around. So for example, we see them often carrying around thimbles, which really sort of shows us the role of women as makers not just inside the house but also on the go. So they also carry around keys often, which can tell us a bit about the role women played. For example, keeping the house safe, locking all the doors at night. Say you were a rich woman, and you had a linen closet with a lot of expensive linens: you were the holder of that key. To make sure that it wasn’t stolen or damaged. It gives us some sense of authority.
Also, women carrying around money. That says a lot about sort of their social mobility and their spending power and in what ways they have to justify the money they use or not. But the fact that they had it on hand is important.
So they would also carry around very simple things like a handkerchief. And also importantly, pocket books, which were kind of a combination of a lady’s magazine, a diary and a way to keep account of your finances. And there’s a whole array, a whole market of pocket-size books on all kinds of topics that were made for carrying around. You know, obviously, people would also carry around personal sentimental items, like maybe a locket with a hair of your child’s or a talisman that will protect you from evil or sickness. And we also see that at night, women might keep their pocket under their pillow for safekeeping. So I think that says something about: this is the place in which you have some authority, some sense of privacy, and you keep it very close to you at all times either on your body, or right under your pillow when you sleep. That says something about the role it plays in women’s lives,
Nanette Ashby
You always have to have it on you, like the idea of the handbag now.
Marjolein Kik
There’s a whole myth that the handbag replaced the pocket. But that’s also just not true.
Nanette Ashby
At that time, women didn’t have much authority about big aspects of their lives. So did this also give them a sense of confidence or self assurance that they had some sort of independence in a small way? As you said, they had access to some part of money and could make financial decisions, and they had agency over what they put in it, what was important to them. Do you think that was also helpful to generally boost women’s independence?
Marjolein Kik
Well, since it was kind of the only physical place where they had a bit of relative privacy and authority, we see that there’s a symbolic importance to them as well. They carry a lot of personal meaning, they’re quite subversive, also because they’re worn underneath your clothing, out of sight, only accessible to you. So by the middle of the 19th century in the UK, we’re seeing that pockets are starting to be considered old fashioned. They’re starting to be referred to as “grandma’s pockets”. And the suffragettes actually really lamented the disappearance of the pockets because to them, it was a symbol of mobility and independence.
And we also see that, for example, women living in workhouses or different institutions, there’s a lot of surveillance on what they have in their pockets that says something, I think, about their meaning and also the social meaning. So pockets kind of become a symbol of desirable womanly virtue, so like, organization, motherhood and being a good housewife. But at the same time, we see in satirical political prints that they’re starting to be seen as a symbol for a vulva because you know, of the general shape and because they’re hidden underneath your clothing in that general area, and it’s kind of a symbol for unbridled lust and vice. Controlling the pockets becomes kind of a symbol for that. I don’t think we had a question about this but it was a small part of my research as well, about sort of, the different ways in which people start defining gender and sex. How that changes over time and how we see, in a time period where people start attributing gender a lot more to physical characteristics, very much an embodied thing, clothing becomes a very important distinguisher of gender and sex as well. Because men and women have different kinds of pockets. They interact differently with them, and it becomes this embodied thing. The pocket as a symbol for the vulva becomes a very gendered – I did not have time in my research to jump into this – but I was so interested to see how that impacts things like cross dressing… That would be so fascinating.
Nanette Ashby
Oh, definitely! Maybe a future research project?
Marjolein Kik
Who knows? Who knows?
Nanette Ashby
How do we actually know what we put into pockets? Because it makes sense to me that we know how the pockets were made, based on sewing instructions, and maybe pictures or notes from people and the physical pockets, obviously. But how do we actually know what they carried in the pockets? Like what kind of sources did you have for that?
Marjolein Kik
So primarily criminal records, actually, interestingly. The Old Bailey in the UK has records that are now all digitized and they go very far back. Women were very keenly aware of everything that was in their pockets, and they are able to give very detailed descriptions of everything they carried around. For example, when they were pickpocketed and they had to appear before a jury, they could list off exactly what was in their pocket and what it looked like and what the value was of everything in there. Same for newspaper articles. If someone was like “help! My pocket was stolen” like “return it and you get a finder’s fee”. And also stories in which it’s just more casually mentioned. Criminal records were an important source of that. Unfortunately, there was no comparable thing in the Netherlands, but in the UK, that was definitely one of the main sources of knowing what people carried around in their pockets.
Nanette Ashby
Okay. And I guess that’s also where the word “pickpocketing” comes from.
Marjolein Kik
There’s a lot of small little hints at pockets when you start paying attention to them. So also, I think it’s a nursery rhyme in the UK about “Lucy Locket who lost her pocket”. How do you lose a pocket if it’s sewn into your clothing, right? Like that only makes sense if it’s a separate garment.
Nanette Ashby
How does one then actually pickpocket? Does one steal the whole pocket? As like the whole thing in itself off of someone, like untie it from around the waist? And then just grab and go? Or does one then try and get the hand into the pocket? Random question.
Marjolein Kik
I’m not a personal expert at this, but people will just stick their hand in and take things out. But it can also happen that maybe the ribbon is cut and it falls and people run away with it.
Nanette Ashby
Makes sense.
Marjolein Kik
Kind of similar to how we would steal purses nowadays, I suppose. But it’s a little bit harder, because they’re worn underneath the clothing. It’s, for example, women in the markets, who would carry them a little bit more visibly because it will be in constant use. And it’s more annoying to have to read through all your layers of skirts to get to it. So then it’s also easier to steal. You notice modern day traveling pockets, they still sell them as like “safety pockets” or “traveling pockets”. That’s where they come from: traditional women’s pockets. But they’re no longer referred to as such. But that’s what they are.
Nanette Ashby
I’m so curious now to hear what was the most memorable thing you found in your research that people carried in their pockets? Or maybe also your favorite thing that really stuck in your brain?
Marjolein Kik
So one pocket that was really, really memorable to me, was this tiny little doll pocket. I think it was just six by eight centimeters or something like that.
Nanette Ashby
Oh wow.
Marjolein Kik
It was part of this doll outfit, this doll actually belonged to a little orphaned girl. And we know that the doll was wearing the typical girl’s dress from the time so that the girl would probably have a very similar or matching outfit with the doll. I imagine that that doll was one of the few possessions that that girl probably had, and to have that doll survive, because the museum that it’s in is the building that used to be the orphanage. So that’s probably how they acquired it, finding this tiny little doll pocket and knowing that that doll used to belong to an orphaned girl, I just thought that was really beautiful.
Nanette Ashby
I wonder if she also carried the doll in her pocket. So it would be a pocket in a pocket?
Marjolein Kik
That is entirely possible.
Nanette Ashby
In light of your research, what do you think about the lack of pockets in women’s clothing nowadays? What’s your perspective on this phenomenon?
Marjolein Kik
Well, modern day pockets are just absolutely miserable. What’s even worse than tiny pockets or those fake pockets?
Nanette Ashby
Oh god, yes!
Marjolein Kik
Where it’s just a suggestion. You think there’s a pocket but you just hit a seam as soon as you put your finger in. Though I personally pretty much exclusively wear men’s trousers and vintage clothing. So you know, because I enjoy a more androgynous style as part of my gender expression, I don’t really struggle with it as much. Yeah, I think the lack of pockets in general in women’s clothing speaks more to the state of, sort of the global fashion industry and fast fashion. Everything is made very quickly, low quality, with as little fabric as possible. And yeah, that just says a whole lot about the working conditions of especially the women of color in the global South, who are producing these pieces for just an abysmal pay. These pieces are not made to be practical, they’re not made to last, they’re made to be consumed for a profit, at the expense of our planet, and all the people involved in the production process.
So what I like about this research and about sort of object-based research in general, is how you can look at one small, maybe unassuming object, and get a lot of personal information stories from it. But you can also use it to discuss much bigger topics, like women’s rights and global trade, whilst remaining very anchored in something that’s very tangible. So it’s when you get too far away, you get a bit lost, you can always return to this one topic to this one object. So it’s a great way to connect and to talk to people about history, using simple objects from daily life.
Nanette Ashby
As part of your thesis research, you also created an educational tool, then, to be put into practice. Can you tell us about that?
Marjolein Kik
Something that I find really important when doing research is that, it’s not just another paper that ends up on a pile somewhere that nobody looks at, I really wanted my research to translate into something very practical. So I decided to make an educational program and I also tested it. A big part of my research was also about how you combine object-based research and object-based learning, and how you can use simple objects from daily life to teach people about history. So that’s why I reconstructed a number of pockets and I gave them to these test subjects, my students, and it was like: “well, here’s a pocket. Here’s a number of items that are inside and here’s a bit of historical context to give you some basic information. What can you learn from the original owner of this pocket? Like, what can you learn about them from just looking at the single object?” And they came up with some really good and interesting interpretations, but it was not even about what they came up with but just their process. What questions were they asking? Why were they asking these questions? It’s a different way of doing research. People get to bring in a lot of personal experiences and insights. And that’s what I really like about it.
Nanette Ashby
And it makes it also more accessible. But also the perspectives are much more diverse, especially if it’s in a museum context, with different age groups, different ethnicities, different abilities… That must also spark a lot of interest and curiosity and questions that you might not have thought of, from your perspective as a researcher. Because we all have our biases and viewpoints and cultures that we grew up in.
Marjolein Kik
Yeah, exactly.
Nanette Ashby
Were there things that surprised you? It may be in your research, but also when you put the tool into practice, and saw how other people interacted with it.
Marjolein Kik
Yeah, there were different things. So, because I’ve been so immersed in this topic for such a long time, there were things that I took for granted that students pointed out. So like, “oh, you know, this is some basic knowledge that we don’t have”. And I’m like, “oh, yeah, of course”. So that was part of why I tested the teaching tool, so I could improve it and add basic information where needed, so it can be applied to as big of a group of people as possible. But I also, you know, had some review forms, like, “what did you think? What did you learn?” And they were really, really positive about it, they really enjoyed it. That’s the most important thing, that people are enjoying the process of learning, because that will encourage them to do it more.
Nanette Ashby
That’s amazing! Also, to be able to share your research in this unique way, is not a very common way across the Humanities. After engaging with this topic, practicing it yourself, sewing the pockets yourself, but going also to archives, encountering all these different histories that are connected to the pockets, what are you still curious about that you weren’t able to cover in the span of your Master thesis?
Marjolein Kik
There’s so many things. But specifically about this topic, I mentioned earlier that a lot of pockets feature a floral theme in their decoration, we know women had a lot of knowledge of botany, and it would be so fascinating to identify the specific plants and flowers that are on the pockets and the meanings behind those like the language of flowers. And if there is a way of storytelling incorporated into the decoration of the pockets, that would just be incredibly interesting to do.
Nanette Ashby
Definitely! That also reminds me of the use of flowers as symbols in the LGBTQ+ community. That would be really fascinating, if there could be a bridge between the two.
Marjolein Kik
When I was testing the educational program with the students, I put items in the different pockets to give them clues about who would the original wearer have been. But a lot of these were just my personal items. So there was also a necklace in there, it was just a random necklace from my collection: it featured a little half moon and one of the students was like “yeah, and we know that sometimes the moon is also symbology for queer relationships. So we wonder if the person wearing this might have been a lesbian”. The fun thing was that a couple of these participants already knew about pockets, because they had seen the same YouTube videos, but they still learned a lot. So they learned a lot, the people who knew nothing about the topic learned a lot. So to me, that showed that it was quite a successful experience when everyone gets to learn something.
Nanette Ashby
Is the tool in practice anywhere? Because after hearing you talk, I want to do it myself, I want to experience it too.
Marjolein Kik
Not yet unfortunately. But you know, hopefully, maybe if I work in a different Museum in the future, I can convince them to put it into practice. So in the previous museum I used to work at, I went through their entire Textile Collection because I’m obsessed, and they showed me all their textiles. And I was like looking at one of their pieces. And I was like, “I think this is a pocket”. They just thought it was like a scrap of fabric. But I was like “No, I definitely think this is a pocket”. So they actually changed the description in the database to saying “this is a pocket” and it’s now actually part of an exhibition. And it has a little sign next to it saying it’s a pocket and I was so happy! When I recently went to the museum, the curator was like “Marjolein, you’ve got to come and see! We put it in the exhibition!”
Nanette Ashby
That is amazing. Wow, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us about this very interesting and very niche topic, and I hope the listeners enjoyed it just as much as I did. You can find more information and links to everything we talked about in this episode in the show notes over at raffia-magazine.com. And please let us know what you think over on Instagram @raffia_magazine. If you liked this podcast, why don’t you leave us a lovely review on Spotify. Thanks so much for listening and all your support for the podcast. We’ll catch you in the next episode. Bye!
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